"First, with all respect to your history," Peter started, "it's too complicated."

Byron took a few glowing tokes from his pipe than shook out the wooden match. His motions were slow, unruffled. He exhaled a plume of smoke, then strolled slowly around the table, eyeing the diagram from over the rim of his gla.s.ses. "Well, now that you mention it, she is kind of a little monster, ain't she?"

"Little? Hah! If we were to code this thing as it is we'd need an army of programmers. We need to break it down into smaller, smarter chunks. Objects. Maybe we should snap up that little object system those kids from Cal Poly showed us last week. h.e.l.l, looking at this, two million doesn't sound like that much anymore."

"Mmm, that would definitely let us break her down to a more manageable size. And adding features would be trivial. Okay, let's call them back and have another look, make sure it'll do what we want," Byron said.

"There's something else."

"Such as?" Byron said, squinting through the rising smoke trails.

"I'm not sure what it is, though. I mean, everything we've got worked out with the agent software is right on. All the cross-referencing between the applications, the net-savvy look-ups and updates and all. But when I step back and look at this, at how it's going to actually look and operate when it's done, I feel like it's missing something. Under the hood we're doing things no one has done before. But on the surface, as nice as it will look, it doesn't seem, well, new enough to me.

Different enough. What can we do to make ours really different from the others that are cropping up out there. They've all got styluses now. And there's that Sony slate computer that came out last week with a track pad almost exactly like the Joey's, so that's caught on too. All of it has. The add-on keyboards.

CD-ROMs. Modems. PC Cards. The whole works. I don't know. Other than the smart software agents we're putting in, what can we do to make ours the all-out winner. The really intelligent a.s.sistant."

"Mmm," Byron hummed.

"What we need is a new paradigm. A bigger-picture metaphor that goes beyond what's already out there, taking this whole business to not just the next possible step, but two or three steps ahead.

Something that really get the juices flowing. I mean, this is all well and good, but is it good enough?" He knocked his fist gently on the flowchart and stared intently at Byron.

"I'm with you."

Staring intensely at the drawing, Peter let out an exasperated sigh. "I just don't know what it should be. And that's the frustrating part."

Grace appeared at the doorway with a tray in her hands, holding sandwiches, French fries, two gla.s.ses of milk. "Time for a break, boys."

"Ah, relief," Byron said, rubbing his hands together. "Honey, we got any vinegar for those fries?"

"Coming right up," Grace said, handing the tray to her husband.

"Now, while we eat," Byron said, blowing on a hot French fry, "you can give your head a rest for a few minutes, and I promise you, while your stomach is doing some work of its own, your brain'll be busy too."

"I'm not so sure," Peter said. He took a sip of his milk.

The telephone rang.

"I'll get it," Grace said, returning from the kitchen with a bottle of cider vinegar. Byron made a beckoning gesture for the bottle.

"I got it," Peter said. "Holmes residence," he said, wiping his lips on his sleeve. "Hi, Peggy. What's up? Wait, let me guess, a problem with my stock sale already," Peter said with a smirk and a roll of his eyes at Byron.

"His secretary," Byron said, identifying the caller to his wife.

"What?" Peter shouted, eyes suddenly wide with panic.

"What is it?" Byron asked, coming to Peter's side.

"h.e.l.lo?" a voice called softly, from inside the house.

"All right, yes," Peter said. "I'll get there as soon as I can."

He hung up the phone and stared at the handset.

"Hi," Kate said, bounding cheerfully into the room. "I let myself in." She froze in place when she took in Peter's aghast expression as he turned away and faced the wall. He locked his hands behind his neck and looked up at the ceiling.

"What the h.e.l.l's wrong?" Byron said.

"What's going on?" Kate asked Grace, who replied with upturned palms. "Peter?" Kate gripped his arm. "What is it?"

"Something back home," Peter said, avoiding every set of staring eyes.

"Is it the stock sale, boy?"

He shook his head.

"Then what?" Kate asked, tugging his arm to make him face her.

He turned around and took her hands. "Something happened. I have to go home." He studied their interlocked fingers. "I can't tell you about it right now." He looked her straight in the eye. It was the wine, he thought grimly.

He let go of her hands. "I need to get to the airport right away," he said to Byron.

"Okay," Kate said, "let's go," taking his arm.

Peter's feet remained planted.

"Peter?"

"I have to go alone," he said, leaving no room for disagreement.

Grace discreetly nudged her husband.

"Okay," Byron said, settling his hands on both Kate's and Peter's shoulders. "Put your coat on. I'll take you to the airport." He gave Kate a rea.s.suring look and a wink.

"Don't you want to pack some things?" Kate said.

"There isn't time," Peter said. "I'll call," he said, unable to look her in the eye again, then turned and left the room.

"Be back in a bit," Byron said, kissing his wife on the cheek.

"Keep those fries in the oven please, dearest." He turned to Kate and gently squeezed her arm. "It's going to be okay." Then he turned and went after Peter.

Hearing Byron's words of rea.s.surance as he waited outside the workroom, Peter felt the thing in his heart come fully awake. It had been hibernating all through the winter and he had forgotten about it. But now it was time to for it to reemerge.

A knot of contradiction swelled in his throat when he remembered back to the premonition he'd had on that fateful night, more than half a year ago, that he was going to lose everything close to his heart, everything that ever mattered. It was starting, he reasoned, and by the looks of it, Kate would be the first piece to fall away.

Chapter 14

William Harrell flipped through the folder of reports his technical adviser had left him, a pleased expression on his face.